摘要：Writing a memoir seems to be a routine step in the career of many transnationally acclaimed writers. The New Zealand author Lloyd Jones, for example, has recently come to the genre of memoir after publishing more than ten books, including some novels which have been translated into many diverse languages, such as Book of Fame (2000) or Mr. Pip (2006). A History of Silence (2013), however, is far more surprising than the simple accomplishment of a routine task. In fact, this is a text which escapes any easy definition: it also includes, for instance, a thorough reflection about the earthquake which devastated Christchurch on 22 February 2011, but it is not in any way an instant book about the recent catastrophe. Jones aims at a broader goal, which is eventually revealed by the very last quotation of the book, taken from Joseph Brodskij's collection of essays On Grief and Reason (1995): 'If art teaches us anything, it is the privateness of the human condition
